The world has seen rapid and often unprecedented biodiversity losses in recent years, with one million species now at threat of extinction. After being delayed twice due to the pandemic, the 15 th Meeting of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) – or COP15 in short – was split into two chapters, the first of which recently concluded in Kunming and saw more than 100 countries sign a new political declaration to guide final negotiations on the draft nature treaty.Īlthough overshadowed by the much better-known COP26 – set to begin shortly in Glasgow – COP15 is just as important. This month, China hosted the first phase of a major two-part UN biodiversity summit that aims to set a new global framework for biodiversity governance through 2030.
A Paris Agreement-style accord for biodiversity may now lie over the horizon at COP15’s second phase next spring. At the first part of the UN biodiversity summit in Kunming, global leaders took a modest yet promising step towards strengthening biodiversity governance and securing a nature-positive future.
